With over 12.5 thousand retweets and uncountable reshares on Instagram accounts within the Greek diaspora and beyond, one sentence about Greek village took the internet by storm towards the close of 2022: “My parents left their villages in Greece to give us a better life and now all I want to do is live in a village in Greece.”
The tweet, written by first-generation Greek-American Eva Basilion, clearly struck a chord. Not only did it capture a feeling that may be familiar to many children and grandchildren of immigrants, but it also tapped into a collective yearning that transcends diaspora communities. The painful desire to return to one’s homeland is nothing new, but there’s something very NOW about the call to a simpler, more community-driven lifestyle.
In the era of remote work where people can make money outside of the fickle Greek economy while sitting on a Greek island, there is an uptick in both ex-pats and the Greek diaspora who choose to live in Greece, and the new digital nomad visa speaks to that demand. As evidenced by the seemingly endless amount of content dedicated to Greece, it’s clear many of us feel called to return. Maybe our parents or grandparents had to leave, but is it time to return?
Basilion’s tweet content was also notably stolen and misattributed by other Greek media sites hungry to get in on the metrics of her viral sentiment (more on that below in our interview with Basilion).
So, who is the woman who so perfectly captured how many of us feel? Eva Basilion grew up in Washington, D.C. The product of a classic American success story, her parents left their villages in Greece to pursue higher education here and opportunity in America. Basilion was trained as an epidemiologist and worked in the global health field until her second daughter was born. Since then, her work has centered on early childhood development. She met her husband, who also happens to be Greek-American, at a party at the Greek Embassy. Her family keeps Greek traditions alive, such as roasting a lamb on the spit for Easter. She now lives in Shaker Heights, OH, with her two daughters and writes about families, feminism, gender, and empathy. In her own words, she also tweets a lot. (Click here to give Eva a follow!) Without further ado, enjoy exclusive our Q & A with Basilion.
Your tweet went VIRAL, not just in the Greek community but also beyond. Why do you think it resonated so deeply?
There is a sense that we had something great that we lost when our parents/grandparents moved. This era of globalization has many of us yearning for simpler times and the sense of community that we associate with village life. The values of our grandparents – family, religion, helping thy neighbor – are still important to us but maintaining them has become an uphill battle. It turns out that the global village is not the same as the actual village where people share physical space in real-time, where people breathe the same air. The village is small, the village is local, and this allows for authentic connection where what happens to you matters to me and what happens to me matters to you. I write about empathy, and one of my favorite sayings is that empathy is a contact sport – the more contact, the more empathy. The village embodies this, and this is what I believe people are seeking.
An example. Here in the US, outsourcing the care of our children and elderly to strangers and institutions has become the norm. How nice it would be if the proverbial village of “it takes a village” were real! When my friend’s father developed dementia and caring for him by his immediate family here became difficult, instead of placing him in a nursing home, they sent him back to his village where aunts and neighbors cared for him until the end of his life.
It’s true, many of us are the product of people who had to leave Greece (or some other war-stricken, impoverished country) and now feel called to return to our ancestral lands. Do you think it’s a viable option given remote work and the general life environment in 2023?
I do! Even just part-time. And it is my understanding that people are indeed returning.
Even as technology advances and billionaires plot trips to Mars, the desire to return to a simpler life is trending (as evidenced by your tweet and other trends such as homesteading, etc). Why might you personally want to return to village life?
I have spent many summers in my brother-in-law’s village Skines in Crete, in the house where his father was born and raised. Skines is a place where everyone knows your name. The church and bakery are right down the street, life is conducted at a leisurely pace, often at the cafe, the air is clean, the sun is bright, the food is fresh and delicious, and the meals are long. You can reach out of your window and pick fruit off the trees, people nap, when someone gets married the whole village attends, and festivals with music, dancing, goat and pilafi are a regular occurrence. When the financial crisis hit Greece, you barely felt it in the village because Manoli had eggs and Soula had oranges and they traded. What’s not to love?
That said, I do think the diaspora romanticize life in Greece. This is human nature. It is impossible to compare our life here to what it would have been had we never left. There was a reason people left, and those of us who made a living here would be going back in a very different position.
So – Greek Gateway stole your tweet without credit. They’re NOTORIOUS for doing this to creators, then blocking them. did they rectify that? How did that feel?
It did not feel good. Other Greek media did not credit me originally but made it right once I contacted them. Greek Gateway was different. When I contacted them, they refused to remove their name from the quote. They said they had not plagiarized me because they had changed the wording from “I” to “we.” I contacted a lawyer, and it turns out that tweets are copyright protected. I might have had a case had I pursued it. I cannot tell you how many people contacted me in solidarity to tell me about their experiences with Greek Gateway and this type of behavior.
One final question – do you find Greece hospitable to diaspora folks who return?
This question reminds me of a White Lotus episode where the grandfather goes back to his ancestral village in Sicily, expecting to be greeted with open arms. And instead, he is driven out by his angry relatives who want nothing to do with him. It was so funny because you didn’t see that coming.
I am always received warmly when I go back to Greece. And when I start speaking Greek, it’s over. I’m family.
EVA, WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO GO VIRAL, ELON MUSK LEVEL VIRAL?
It was fun because the responses were overwhelmingly positive, which is not often the case on Twitter, as we all know. The best part about going viral? This text message from my Goddaughter.